The Southern California real estate market took a breather in September, with sales dipping slightly as the market entered a typically slower season amid price gains that have made homes less affordable.

House prices continued rising in July, increasing from year-ago levels for a 51st straight month in Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire and the 50th straight month in Orange County, the CoreLogic Home Price Index showed Tuesday.

A strong surge in real estate transactions, new commercial and residential construction and rising housing prices should generate a $3-plus billion increase in property tax revenues for schools and local governments during the current fiscal year.

Advocates of so-called “inclusionary” policies to provide more housing to low- and moderate-income families were elated when the U.S. Supreme Court this week spurned a challenge to San Jose’s ordinance.

A trio of new reports from Beacon Economics show that high home prices are driving low and medium-wage workers out of California. The studies also say that not enough homes are being built.

California boasts some of the highest wages and fastest rates of job growth in the nation but high housing costs are pushing many people out of the state, according to a trio of reports released Wednesday.

RIALTO >> One of the larger redevelopment projects in the Inland Empire is currently taking shape in and around the former Rialto Airport, with developers in discussions with potential tenants and city officials eager to usher in new housing, job and revenue opportunities.

California voters could be asked this fall to touch what’s been an untouchable law: the property tax initiative known as Proposition 13. A potential November ballot proposal would raise taxes on the state’s highest-value properties and spend the money on anti-poverty programs.

A group of Moreno Valley residents have launched a petition drive with the goal of overturning three city-adopted initiatives aimed at protecting the World Logistics Center from environmental challenges.

Put another crimp in the belt for housing unaffordability in California.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency recently said it will keep the 2016 maximum conforming loan limits for mortgages acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at $417,000 on one-unit properties, and raised the cap to $625,500 in only four high-cost regions.

To read article by Debra Gruszecki in The Press-Enterprise, click here.

They file 48,000 signatures for ballot measures to fight challenges to the proposed World Logistics Center warehouse complex.

Published: Nov. 16, 2015 – Updated: 10:23 p.m.

Supporters of the World Logistics Center turned in about 48,000 signatures Monday for three ballot initiatives aimed at thwarting legal challenges to a 40.6 million-square-foot warehouse complex that would transform the city’s eastern side.

SAN BERNARDINO >> A plan to dramatically redevelop the 42.6 acres downtown where Carousel Mall has sat since 1973 took a big step forward Monday when the City Council unanimously entered an exclusive negotiation agreement with two companies to develop the mall and adjacent Theater Square area.

Housing in California — already considered unaffordable to many — will become even less affordable over the next two years, with construction unable to keep up with demand, according to a UCLA economic forecast released Monday.

Legislation gives local agencies ways to pay for projects once funded by redevelopment

Four years after approving legislation that ended the anti-blight redevelopment program in California, Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed a bill giving local agencies a way to pay for similar projects.

Rising home prices across California have eroded affordability to the point that only seven counties, including San Bernardino, have housing that a family earning the median income can afford to buy, according to a study released Thursday.

“This project is a game-changer of proportional magnitude not only for the city but the entire region,” said Mayor Jesse Molina, who was one of three supporters. Council members George Price and LaDonna Jempson opposed the project.

Published: Aug. 19, 2015 – Updated: 11:50 p.m.

After three years of controversy that has divided residents, Moreno Valley officials voted Wednesday, Aug. 19 to dramatically transform the city’s east side with what would be one of the largest warehouse complexes in the country.

New housing construction in east San Bernardino Valley has carefully and methodically reemerged from the recession. Encouraged by record low interest rates, lower developable land prices, and higher housing demand, local leaders in the housing industry are again building houses.

The Lou Desmond and Company Show is coming to you from the Toyota of San Bernardino Recording Studios!

Tonight, Ed Hoffman, Doctor of Capitalism, joins the show to talk about the rising home values and sales in the Inland Empire and the shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After that, they discuss Donald Trump. Ed likes him, Lou does not. But why is his popularity climbing?

But before the first bulldozer starts pushing dirt, the city’s elected leaders will have to sign off on the project that pits the promise of jobs and an economic boost against concerns of traffic and pollution. Most City Council members have received campaign support from Benzeevi, but none will say how they plan to vote.

The Southern California real-estate market is feeling the sting of a changing climate, as a pair of new reports finds renters, would-be homebuyers and black households losing ground in the face of competition from investors and a widening racial wealth gap.

Four years after pledging to clean up wide-ranging foreclosure abuses, Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and four other banks still aren’t complying with customer-service standards imposed by a federal regulator.

Two county transportation officials say a study on the impact of a warehouse project falls short.

Published: June 10, 2015 – Updated: 10:53 p.m.

As the World Logistics Center faces its first public hearing in Moreno Valley on Thursday, June 11, two county transportation agencies became the latest to say the mega warehouse proposal’s environmental analysis is flawed.

Saying a major “loophole” allows some business to unfairly avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes, two Democratic state senators on Wednesday filed a proposed constitutional amendment to revise Proposition 13, the landmark property tax initiative approved by California voters in 1978.

An environmental report on the proposed project — which would stretch 700 football field — could be vulnerable to court challenges, air board says. The developer, however, sticks by the report.

Published: June 9, 2015 Updated: June 10, 2015 – 8:02 a.m.

State air quality officials say that Moreno Valley’s environmental analysis of a proposed warehousing complex with enough indoor space for 700 football fields is “legally inadequate” and needs major revisions. The developer countered Tuesday that the report “meets all the requirements” of the state’s environmental quality law.

Activists are again agitating for a ballot measure that would end Proposition 13 protections for commercial buildings. But while a poll last week shows a bare majority support such a “split roll” plan, a decent campaign by opponents could quickly erode that advantage.

Support has dwindled for removing commercial properties from tax limits imposed by Proposition 13, the landmark property tax initiative approved by voters in 1978, according to a new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved The Crossings at Redlands, a 340-unit gated apartment complex in an unincorporated area of Redlands. It will feature a sidewalk coffee shop/cafe, produce market and state-of-the-art fitness center. It is a companion project to the neighboring Circa 2020 apartment complex now under construction. (Courtesy artist rendering)

By Joe Nelson, The Sun Posted: 05/20/15 – 6:45 PM PDT |

REDLANDS >> In the same vein as Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga and other mixed-use developments across Southern California, a 340-unit gated apartment complex, with a retail component, has been approved for development in an unincorporated area of this city.

Riverside, San Bernardino county homes sales were up 8 percent last month, the third best April since 2006, according to CoreLogic DataQuick

Published: May 19, 2015 Updated: May 20, 2015 – 11:27 a.m.

Home sales in Inland Southern California continued to flex some muscle in April, restoring optimism in a marketplace that got off to a sluggish start for 2015.

It was the third best April for the Inland region since the housing bust, with 6,109 Riverside and San Bernardino new and existing home and condo sales closing escrow, according to CoreLogic DataQuick’s latest report.

Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido has agreed to pay $13,000 in fines to the state’s political watchdog for several violations of state law related to a real estate deal he conducted with a city contractor.

May 7, 2015 Capitol Alert The go-to source for news on California policy and politics By Dan Walters dwalters@sacbee.com

A coalition of public employee unions and other liberal groups, including many churches, launched a campaign Thursday to alter Proposition 13, California’s iconic property tax limit, and raise billions of dollars by hiking taxes on commercial property.

SAN BERNARDINO >> Four developers are finalists to build on the 43-acre property occupied by Carousel Mall, and most likely, the mall will be demolished to make way for new development, a city official said during a broker roundtable Tuesday.

The slow pace of homebuilding will hurt California by driving millennials out of state to buy, according to a gloomy assessment by California Association of Realtors CEO Joel Singer. (Dennis McCoy | Sacramento Business Journal)

Lakeside Tower is among 17 buildings that are part of the Tri-City Corporate Centre complex that was sold to new owners as part of the largest office space in Inland Empire history, according to the real estate brokerage firm CBRE. (Courtesy photo)

In another sign of the region’s rebounding economy, the largest sale of office space in Inland Empire history, according to CBRE, the Los Angeles-based real estate brokerage company that facilitated the deal, closed last month.

Luxury hotels such as the Montage Laguna Beach that endured the downturn are now thriving, making them appealing targets for investors. The resort sold last month. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

By Roger Vincent February 15, 2015

Pampered guests at the five-star Montage Laguna Beach resort can swim in a lap pool overlooking the Pacific, dine on caviar and sleep on goose-down pillows to a lullaby of crashing waves.

In 1978, Californians passed Proposition 13 to cap property tax increases at two percent per year. At the time, and as we saw last decade, property values were increasing at such a fast pace, that many people had difficulty keeping up with the doubling and tripling of their property taxes. Seniors on fixed incomes were sometimes forced to sell their homes because the taxation levels exceeded their ability to pay the taxes.

The regulator for bailed-out housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac told lawmakers Tuesday that new programs to back mortgages with down payments as low as 3% had enough safeguards to make them as safe as loans with higher down payments.

RANCHO CUCAMONGA >> The head of one of Southern California’s largest development companies predicted local economic growth in the coming year in a keynote speech in front of hundreds of real estate brokers at the Goldy S. Lewis Community Center in Rancho Cucamonga on Friday.

Our friends at The Orange Juice Blog have penned their final compelling summation of the events surrounding two go-nowhere District Attorney investigations into a coordinated effort to engineer the sale of the Orange County Fairgrounds to developers.